Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Sept 28

Hi, everybody! Any news from the hurricane or fire zones? We worry.

The great photo above is from Don in Kansas, who has posted a gardening year in review, with several great photos and some valuable information if you are planning next year's garden.

The enormous clump of Helianthus maximiliani, seven feet tall, has just started blooming, and the much smaller Tricyrtis will follow in a few days. Otherwise, the garden is pretty much done for the year. This is as good a time as any to look back and see what did well and what didn’t, and what did too well.

Callirhoe involucrata is the prettiest of all weeds in the prairie lawn, with a splendid display of bright magenta flowers in early summer. Prairie Moon Nursery claims that it is well-behaved: “Mature plants spread out over about 3 feet. Despite these rambling habits, Purple Poppy Mallow plays nicely with others – topping out between 6 and 12 inches – which allows enough sunlight for other plants to poke through and share the spotlight.” Well, maybe — if grown hard with minimal water. In good soil with regular water, once established it becomes monstrous, rapidly overwhelming everything nearby. I’ve kept the plants hacked back, and they’ll be coming out entirely soon.

I'm growing two kinds of milkweed, which monarchs have discovered.

Don's Echinacea (photo at the link) was also attacked by caterpillars of the Silvery Checkerspot butterfly. But the flowers survived!

Lots more great photos and information at the link. Take a look!

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

By-Tor is still working through his bumper crop of Habaneros. We got a photo of Habaneros on street tacos, then a detailed recipe for Pineapple-Habanero Jam on Sept. 14 and Chinese Hot Chili Oil (with Habanero) on Sept. 21. By-Tor says the projects below worked out well, too. The hot sauce bottles came from Amazon.

Still working my way through my stash of habaneros, this time with tropical jam (papaya, guava, pineapple and habanero) and habanero hot sauce.

Enhancing the growing environment for fruits on the Wasatch Front

Yet another Mini Van load from another one of our Food Forests In Ogden. Dry Farming Fruit is much prettier, sweeter than anything you’ve ever ate before! Thanks to the tons and tons of Woodchips we use we can totally stop watering. This increases the sugar content and allows everything to ripen uniformly. YOU can do this too in YOUR backyard supermarket. Even though it is almost October using Greenhouses, Dry Farming and lots of sunshine our harvests are improving! Insanely sweet Donut Peaches, O Henry’s, Honeycrisp Apples, Bosc Pears, Tomatoes NO SPRAY. Will be at the farmers markets we attend in Utah.

MORE Neighborhood Farms!

Chads Midgley

("Dry farm" here may mean "no water since the end of August". This sweetens the fruit before harvest)

Figs require winter protection on the Wasatch Front. Peach blossoms or small fruit may get frozen out some years if there is an early bloom or late frost. Apricots are chancier, and only a few varieties are grown there.

As a rule, it is a great idea to check out the climate adaptation of any variety of stone fruit you want to plant, as well as the rootstock it is grafted onto (if applicable).

If winter protection is going to be necessary, you need a plan to control the size of your tree.

Illuminated Manuscript

Seasonal dried fruits – a chestnut and hazelnuts – decorate the bottom of this folio of the Mira calligraphiae monumenta, a collection bringing together a selection of "admirable calligraphies".

A blue iris with spread petals completes the composition. This iris is also called England iris or English iris. At the end of the 16th century, when the monks of the Bavarian Abbey of Eichstätt received its large bulbs from the Big Island, they believed that this iris usually grew there. This sort of iris was later named Iris bulbosa anglicana.

The small format manuscript was calligraphed in Vienna by Georg Bocskay and illuminated by Joris Hoefnagel, two Hungarian artists, between 1561 and 1596.
Los Angeles, Getty Museum, Ms. 20 (86.MV.527), f° 52, 16,6 × 12,4 cm

Marie-Reine Demollière

Original:

Des fruits secs de saison – une châtaigne et des avelines – décorent le bas de ce folio des Mira calligraphiae monumenta, recueil rassemblant une sélection d’« admirables calligraphies ».

Un iris bleu aux pétales déployés complète la composition. Cet iris est aussi appelé iris d'Angleterre ou iris anglais. À la fin du XVIe siècle, lorsque les moines de l’abbaye bavaroise d'Eichstätt reçurent ses gros bulbes de la Grande Île, ils crurent que cet iris y poussait habituellement. Cette sorte d’iris prit par la suite le nom d’Iris bulbosa anglicana.

Le manuscrit de petit format fut calligraphié à Vienne par Georg Bocskay et enluminé par Joris Hoefnagel, deux artistes hongrois, entre 1561 et 1596.

Los Angeles, Getty Museum, Ms. 20 (86.MV.527), f° 52, 16,6 × 12,4 cm

Marie-Reine Demollière

The Royal Horticultural Society says that the iris is from Spain (if it's the same one). Looks kinda different. No indications on that page that it is an Iris for Summer or Fall.

Puttering

This week from Bird Dog at Maggie's Farm, Overseeding a tired lawn.

Lawns are sort of silly things, but good for kids. I like a Cape Cod lawn - which is no lawn. Sand, some wild grasses, some Black Pines and Scrub Oak. Zero maintenance. Well, we can't all have that. Deserts are easy too, except for the golf courses.

OK, around here late September and early October is the time to overseed. Grasses like cool weather, and the new seed needs to be watered once or twice for at least two weeks unless it rains: How to overseed a lackluster lawn.

BirdDog has a couple of tips of his own, too.

At last week's link (bottom of the post), power seeding (slit seeding) a lawn.

After you've finished taking care of the lawn (or not):

Never too old for a little fun! 👍😂pic.twitter.com/oxuUN5CFNP

— Figen (@TheFigen_) September 26, 2024

Adventure

Near the Arizona/Utah border is this truly spectacular sandstone rock formation called the Wave that looks more like a surrealist painting than an actual place you can visit. The undulating rock formations are not only visually striking but also geologically significant, as the patterns are a result of ancient sand dunes that hardened into rock, then eroded into the fluid forms seen today.

Marcin Zając

Taken 9-23-24 Late afternoon and evening along Million Dollar Highway between Crystal Lake and Red Mountain Pass, south of Ouray, CO.

Ray Mathis

From other available photos, it looks like the Million Dollar Highway is a great place to go to see fall foliage in the West.

Gardens of The Horde

What's happening in your garden? Any weather-related changes? Harvesting anything? Still have flowers?

Do you have fall leaves?

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Sept. 21

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:09 PM

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